Breaking News from the U.S. Embassy
The U.S. Embassy released a statement this morning that said, “Effective May 12, U.S. Embassy Moscow will reduce consular services offered to include only emergency U.S. citizen services and a very limited number of age-out and life or death emergency immigrant visas.” Russians who are not diplomats or applying for their green card will no longer be able to apply inside their own country for visas to visit the United States. PK Executive Director Karyn Gershon was invited to speak with Voice of America about this breaking news. See Karyn’s insights below:
“What we are really seeing is a classic cold war response between Russia and the US. While it is painful to those of us committed to citizen diplomacy, this is really a normalization of the relationship between the countries. President Biden is working to return our countries to a mature diplomatic relationship where actions that are inconsistent with American values are challenged. I expect this of my government and I expected President Putin’s response.
That said, while the reduction of embassy staff and visas is very disappointing, diplomatic relations continue. US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry met with Russian leadership at the April 2021 Climate Summit and will meet with them again in November.
Due to the pandemic, people are not traveling between countries for regular tourism but rather due to pressing family issues. While some accommodations have been made for emergencies, these sanctions will hurt those who most need to travel.
When we bring members of the Russian NGO community to share best practices, it is such a powerful opportunity for us to learn from each other on how to build meaningful Jewish communities, how to address domestic violence, how to encourage more women to get mammograms, etc. With a decline in visas, we will be more limited in our ability to learn from our Russian colleagues and they from us. At this moment, we are not traveling due to COVID and I can only hope that these restrictions will end by the point that the pandemic will allow us to travel again.”